The Life and Death of a Dratini
by Ladybird-Stop-Licking-My-Money
Summary: Twisted hulks of machinery plummet from the sky and smite Cerulean City; self-possessed scientists open Pandora's Box with a single DNA sequence; enigmatic monster devours life at terrifying speeds; Pokemon disappear, Ash and Charizard trail the wreckage.
1. Grove

**Disclaimer: Don't be a fool. I don't own Pokemon, and am not worth your legal time.**

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The following was found scribbled on parchment in a cave somewhere outside Viridian City:

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A DRATINI

Dratini was cute, it knew that much. It woke up cute, it broke fast cute, it napped cute. The pool of its existence was awash in continual expressions of large eyes and pale blue fins, and a candy voice whispering its own name continually – albeit irritatingly (but if Dratini never wished to utter anything else, who am I to judge?).

Dratini was rare; it knew no other Dratinis. At one point it was and egg, but Dratini hatched alone and took its first tentative slithers upon earth alone. Did I say earth? I meant pond, because Dratini was born in a pond – but either way Dratini's first venture upon land was done singularly as well.

But its lack of company did not diminish the cute factor of Dratini. In fact, one might say the lack of any other creature near Dratini only enhanced its one defining feature by narrowing the focus of anyone within sight. For if you had a whole room of cute Pokemon, do not the individual Pokemon as a whole become less cute by law of comparison?

However, the conundrum here is that if there is no one to witness Dratini it could not possibly be cute, for cute is perception and someone must perceive it. That is, unless Dratini itself felt cute when it became aware of its reflection in the pond of its birth.

This is beside the point though. Dratini is the point, and the only point to be made here is Dratini. Or perhaps what Dratini did is more to the point.

Dratini woke up, its large sleep dazed eyes glazed over with remnants of lonely dreams. It yawned a tired yawn and uttered its tired word, "Dratini," and uncurled slowly against the soft cushion of pond moss blanketing the bed beneath it. Above Dratini's head swirled mottled patterned highways of light, translucent and reflective, painting green rock and dark water with bright and hopeful suggestions.

Dratini surfaced, the midday sun peeking out happily among a canopy of branches – walls of barked cocoons silent sentries for the dragon-child's glade. Those sentries, nurturing as always greeted Dratini with their bounty of nuts littering the lawn of luscious grass.

The nuts were delicious to Dratini – who happily consumed the same fare day after day. Without knowing anything else, it could not possibly dissent. Dratini did not know apples, or kibbles, or treats, or snacks. One single species of nut Dratini knew, one species of nut was all Dratini had for comparison.

For all of Dratini's consuming of nuts though, Dratini never grew any larger. Dratini never grew beyond the small limits of its pond – much like a tiny Goldeen housed in a glass bowl. In fact, Dratini didn't even know the shed-skin ability which as one may guess created yet another conundrum with Dratini's existence. Without the shed-skin ability, how could Dratini possibly contain its life-energy?

Here we find a Dratini entirely alone in a grove of trees, in a scummy little pond, far away from any other fresh water source like a river or a stream, let alone a waterfall. In all known scenarios for a Dratini, this was the unlikeliest. So for all unknown scenarios for a Dratini, the unlikeliest things happened.

Dratini didn't contain its life-energy which, contrary to Dratini's physical size and inability to shed-skin, continued to grow.

Thus explained the richness and the thickness of the grove whose trees formed an impenetrable wall and always bore the nuts which Dratini ate year round. The luscious canopy of said trees formed a dome of protection for Dratini under the influence of the life-energy, releasing faint scents deterring other Pokemon from approaching; letting shy Dratini live its life in seclusion.

A secret cloister in the winter woods.

Secret until I found it…

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** R&R if you wish. I don't really care either way, but I'll read it if you write it.**


	2. Cave

**Disclaimer: You know the drill, I don't own this crap and am not worth your legal time.**

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The following is a continuation of scribblings found on parchment in a cave somewhere outside Viridian City:

_I am a research scientist. Or at least that's what I was, it seems like ages ago now from the time I first spotted that green deciduous grove in the dead of winter from the cabin of my Cessna. It was somewhat like what I was looking for, and the bizarre factor of its sighting certainly merited further investigation._

_Truly, my search was about finding the fountain of youth, metaphorically speaking. I was chosen (being the only scientist on the team with botany in my background) to locate a rare sprout that grew green in snow, a time of year where all other plants lay dormant at this latitude. Our goal was to isolate the DNA of the plant that allowed for such rapid regeneration of its damaged cell tissue against cold. With it, we would be able to develop a drug to combat aging. _

_However I never found the plant - something else caught my attention. After all, the stand of trees I spotted were leafy and resplendent in green health amid winter's icy grip. It was as if seasons – time itself – had no hold on that place. It was my duty to investigate, my curiosity was killing me. _

_So I marked the coordinates, and found a clear spot to land on an old logging road. Despite the time of year, it was a beautifully clear day and the cold had an added benefit of hardening the runway and leaving the engine highly efficient. From there I snow-shoed out with my GPS. The forest was silent and the trees barren under the hazy sun. When I finally arrived at the grove, the healthy trees glowed simply by comparison to the glazed surroundings. _

_If in reading up to this point you think my account has been fairly normal, than you would be right. After all, it wasn't completely impossible to have growing plants in mid-winter – my mysterious plant set precedent for it. But I have something to reveal here, something important enough to warrant your attention! _

_The grove of trees was different! They were interlocked. They formed an impenetrable wall. What's more, they were the same species of tree like the others in the forest. By all laws of nature, that grove shouldn't have existed, yet it did. Even stranger was the lack of Pokemon. Snow-shoeing in I had seen plenty of Pokemon tracks, but at about a hundred yards from the trees, they all stopped. Every stretch of snow was spotless, trees were flawless – no hungry Pokemon had touched any bark. The place was dead._

_And yet it lived._

_So I climbed. I climbed up the trees and the air grew warmer and my surroundings brighter. I found nuts and moss and all signs of living activity in those trees. And when I reached the top of the trunk, I saw something quite unbelievable. Grass! Green grass in the middle of winter! Green grass littered with ripe nuts, and the stillness of a small green pond._

_I tied a knotted rope to a branch and let myself down. Let me tell you, the air was warm – I was over-dressed in my down coat. The sun was bright like summer and the sky a cheerful azure. It was like a tiny Eden gracing the barren wastes of winter…_

The sun outside the cave was sinking fast and what meager light it proffered was going with it. Ash glanced back at the paper, yellowed and burnt at points. Whatever this scientist had to write could offer clues as to what was happening.

With a flick of the wrist Ash let out an old friend, Charizard. It had been recently his main transportation, called up from Charicific Valley once again.

"I need some light Charizard."

Charizard willingly complied, swinging his tail around. It was good to have a Pokemon out again – the absence of Pikachu was painful.

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**More plot stuff. R&R if you want.**


	3. Tragedy

**Disclaimer: Doo dee doo dee, here I am, not owning Pokemon.**

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The clouds lay outside the cave thickly in a blanket, darkening as the sun sank beneath them. Low and distant thunder rolled, muffled by its shroud. But Ash knew it to be misleading. Ash knew it wasn't thunder. High above the ground through the drawn curtain of gray two forces grappled like a Seviper and Zangoose, to the detriment of those below. These clouds controlled by an unseen force created tsunamis and monsoons in one hand, in the other striking the land with meteors and firestorms. Two abominations of humanity fought from those heights, creating that thunder. Unspeakable rage and chaos and the desire to control it – like a black serpent swallowing its tail.

Together they blighted the world.

Ash had been resting in Pallet Town when the first event happened. Giant parts of machinery plummeted from the sky – striking Cerulean City. Hundreds of humans and Pokemon were killed. He remembered running to Oak's lab with his mother, Misty, and the Mime; they all watched in silent horror the news coverage. Rescue teams frantic and distraught, aerial footage of the damage; it was as if a giant hand had swatted so many away.

Misty burst into tears and recovered. A smothering fog of hopelessness gripped all in the room, and they watched silently – pieces of glass to be shattered separately. There was no comfort in each other, not for Misty in Ash, not for Oak in Delia. Some greater force had crushed them today, and they all knew it.

For hours, they said nothing and just watched. Then, slowly, Misty rose and left - they knew where she was going.

The horror of it all. The blood, the bodies, the terror. Humanity most fragile hurtling through space in its lonely pursuit of emptiness. Ash thought nothing could be worse.

But more crippling blows were to be done. Painfully, news came forward. Other cataclysmic events. More machinery striking from the sky, creating surges of water that battered coastal cities, forests on fire – forests littered with charred remains and remains to be. Colossal winds shoving out of mountains and flattening whatever seemed fit, power surges leaving the world silent and dark.

Even stranger, reports of angry cries echoing out from above the clouds – sightings of a human or creature screeching across the sky at incredible speed, pursued by war-birds. The sounds of clashing steel and explosions ripped down from above and reached the terrified ears of an entire population.

And then silence. One week after it all began the world was left to nurse its wounds. Like most others, Ash thought it to be an uneasy and fitful peace, meant to be filled with preparedness. He, with Tracy, Oak, and Delia set to work building a shelter for them and the Pokemon beneath Oak's lab. With the Pokemon helping in excavation, work went quickly.

Then the unspeakable happened. The Pokemon disappeared.

Ash remembered that terrifying moment, when he knew that Pikachu was gone, not missing or not lost, gone. They woke up to silence; no chatterings or tweetings or snortings or gruntings greeted their ears. It was an unnatural silence. When they rose, they searched but they knew.

The Pokemon were gone. Somehow, given the terrible circumstances it was believable. Misty returned with her sisters that same day, and confirmed their fears. The cities, the countryside, the forests were barren and deserted of the greatest things that gave them life.

Except for one…

Ash glanced over at his Charizard standing there in the cave by the light of its tail.

…From some remote expanse beyond the reach of chaos Charizard flew in and gave Ash something he hadn't felt since he first saw those images flooding into his living room from Cerulean city:

Hope.

Somehow Charizard had escaped it all, somehow Charizard heard a call Ash had never uttered, and Ash was grateful. Charizard's arrival signaled the next step in the face of tragedy.

There in the cave somewhere outside Viridian City, one month since those first steps began, Ash knew these terrible events were inexplicably linked with the Dratini in the grove.

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**Tada! R&R if you mean it.**


	4. Pandora

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.**

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As the last notions of sunlight slipped below the horizon the job of illumination fell solely to Charizard – who complied whether it cared to or not.

As the last semblances of peace and stability left his world, the burden of support and solution fell upon Ash – who like Charizard did not have a choice.

And so Ash began reading the last messages scrawled in all likelihood by the mangled corpse outside the cave:

_Reader, do you know why I am writing this? Why it is here in this cave? Reader, I am hiding. Hiding from what I have done, and the monster that was created with me to blame. What I have allowed to happen._

_There was life, as you know, in that green green grove. Beautiful life, adorable life seeking only its own solitude and company._

_But what did I do? I captured it, I knew Dratini must have been the source of that grove. It made so much sense; the grove was a shell for the Shuckle, protection for the weak body housed within. _

_I returned to my research team, gloating that what I had found was a thousand times more important than some silly plant growing in the snow. A Dratini with the power to subtly manipulate the life forces around it – a Dratini that could rearrange matter and sustain the energy of other living creatures subconsciously. They were shocked, then drunk with the dreams of possibility. _

_We changed our research plan, and studied the Dratini. Using comparisons with the genetic coding of Psychic Pokemon, we isolated the sequences allowing Dratini to influence life-forces outside its own body. It took us over two years of constant engineering, but eventually we were able to extract and replicate Dratini's DNA into a workable serum ready for test injection into a stem cell site – assumed to be at the base of the spine. _

_In the end Dratini died, overcome with what I now realize was grief. Throughout the whole period of study it was kept in a steel cage away from its beloved grove, company, and even light. Now my guilt is lethal for my responsibility in the cruel circumstances that ended Dratini's once beautiful life, but at the time we didn't care. We had found the cure for humanity._

_It was only later we realized how terribly true that statement was. We knew our findings were fantastic – immortality in a pinprick, but we were blind to the dangers it presented with perverted use._

_A broken window brought us the cold taste of reality._

_It was madness, the scattered papers, rifled lockers, and shattered glass signified a violent end to our daydream of fame and fortune. Our greatest work and shame was stolen, the serum. _

_We were shocked, angry, confused, and despondent. Our work and dreams disappeared in a roaring inferno, we torched our small institute to prevent further damage than what we already knew was coming. The criminals just wanted the vile, our notes were intact – Dratini's corpse was still in the freezer. If we rid the world of the means, it could never happen again._

_But we already knew it was too late._

_Three months later and you quite suddenly had reason to read this. He came seeking revenge for the evil we unleashed. I – almost fittingly – am the last one, hiding in this cave upon the hearing the news that my co-workers bodies were found, one-by-one, dismembered and rotten on various rooftops. The ones that still had faces were contorted in agony._

_I'd like to say, as my last words to any soul other than my killer, that I regret what I've done and deserve to face my judgment._

_But the greatest casualty here is poor Dratini._

_Its isolation I now understand was conscious on Dratini's part; it was an act of unfathomable wisdom. What would be certainly abused it chose to conceal in the green veil of branches and leaves. _

_But I am Pandora._

Ash checked the back of the paper for more writing. Nope. Frustration mounted in his temples. He was now fairly certain of the cause of all these wretched events, but who or what had perpetrated them remained an enigma.

Apparently, this self-absorbed scientist felt the 'minor detail' of who was destroying all of fucking Kanto was entirely unimportant.

Or obvious? Irrelevant? If the monster was undefeatable than who made him wouldn't matter, that information would serve no purpose.

Or obvious? It after all, was Kanto, and Kanto is territory of one crime ring alone.

Team Rocket.

There was no question that they had scientists bent on mal-intent, but were they sophisticated enough? Could they have finally gone too far and for their sins punished the rest of the world? Surely they weren't that idiotic.

But then again...

"Come on Charizard, let's go."

Ash and Charizard together passed out of the cave, through the fetid stench of decay, and up into the open night sky.

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**I added flour to this plot. It thickens.**


	5. Nightmare

**Disclaimer: Who owns Pokemon? Not me.**

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Ash and Charizard continued on to Pewter City armed with new knowledge, watching the ground and sky pass steadily around them, tuned to the rhythmic beating of the dragon's wings. Sparks and twinkles flickered far away, like rivers of light billowing black columns into the cast iron night. They were fires still burning uncontrollably in the absence of Pokemon, belching plumes that obscured distance and vision.

As the blanket of Viridian Forest began to fray at its edges, Charizard descended, gliding silently towards a city that was really a town. Ash frowned, they were descending into darkness, no lights were appearing from the ground below.

"Charizard, aren't we landing too early?" He asked, sure that this was a mistake.

Charizard gave a negative grunt in response, now skimming along at tree level. With a decisive flap he vaulted a rooftop and landed roughly in a deserted street.

Ash slid off of his Pokemon and looked around. Silhouettes of buildings could vaguely be seen, the night being overcast and moonless. But everything was dark, even the streetlamps.

"Maybe they've had a power outage…" He said, half to Charizard, half to himself.

Charizard growled his response and walked over to the nearest house. Using his tail for light he peered into the window, then with a resounding crack he head bashed the door into a thousand splinters.

"HEY!" Ash shouted angrily, running over to his Pokemon. "WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?!" He yanked hard on Charizard's wing, and was subsequently pulled into the house. Immediately he forgot his friend's rude behavior upon looking around. Every piece of furniture was in some sort of disarray, papers were scattered, and thousands of glass and pottery shards littered the floor, glistening like stars in the firelight.

"What do you think happened here?" Ash muttered.

Charizard sniffed the air and let out a throaty snarl. He stomped out of the house, leaving Ash to follow. Out in the yard, he took a directional huff and started flying off down the street.

"Charizard, wait up!" Ash yelled, running after him. The Pokemon was definitely on to something, and hopefully it wasn't anything more than they could handle by themselves. He really needed to find Brock and have him read that paper, that is, if Brock was still alive.

He saw Charizard land up ahead, scent his coordinates and bash down another door.

"CHARIZARD!! You can't just break down peoples' doors!" Ash yelled more out of impulse than anything; for all he knew this was a ghost town. During these sort of times, a splintered door didn't seem all that important anyway.

From out of the house, Ash heard Charizard's murderous roar and the squeals of two people. Then like a Wailord breeching, he burst through the roof sending boards and insulation flying and flaming from the fire of his tail. Like snow in the night, the sparks drifted through the air as the dragon Pokemon took a few flaps toward his master.

With a grunt Charizard deposited two familiar forms in front of Ash, who were dazed to say the least, and covered from head to toe in what looked like jewelry.

"Team Rocket?" Ash said to his Pokemon, who growled his response. "And they, they were LOOTING?!"

James smiled sheepishly, "It's not what it looks like, twerp. We were just uh – "

"Trying to stay warm!" Jessie interjected, looking satisfied with herself.

Ash sighed. He really didn't feel like dealing with this right now. What did it matter that they were looting anyway?

A warm breeze drifted through the air, making Charizard's tail dance ambitiously.

"Do you know where all the people have gone? I'm looking for Brock." Ash asked, indifferently.

"You mean you don't even care that we were…?" Jessie eyed him distrustfully.

"No, when we arrived yesterday the whole place was deserted." James spoke up.

"Where were you coming from?"

There was silence between them for some time, within it the stirrings of an uneasy truce.

"Uh…" James hesitated.

"HQ." Jessie shook her head. "We got an urgent call for all hands to report, but by the time we got there we found the same thing we found here." She gestured openly to the silent houses and streets. "Nothing."

"What's more," James spoke quietly, "Meowth and our other Pokemon deserted us like all the others some time ago."

"Do you think that Team Rocket has anything to do with all of this?" Ash asked calmly, noticing now how haggard and worn their faces looked, a symptom of hell traversed and back.

Again there was silence, the partners seemed to fade away in the firelight – shadowed with dread and doubt.

James was the first to speak, though apprehensively. He stared distantly and uttered slowly. "We've been having nightmares…Not even that. Visions."

After a time Jessie spoke, "Sometimes they weren't so much images, but feelings. Feelings like you were betrayed, or about to be swallowed whole, or suffering from…from sadness. But, when they were images…" Jessie looked at Ash, a mixture of frantic desperation leeching into her eyes. "How could you ever want to see again?" She sank slowly to the ground, pausing for a moment. Then she continued, barely above a whisper. "The closer we got to HQ, the worse it became. First the terrors came at night, but then in the daylight too. By the time we got there they were constant…"

"When we saw nothing living, we ran." James finished solemnly. After a moment, he gave a grave, if deranged chuckle. "It seems the further we are from that place, the better it is." He glanced at Charizard, and then up into the night sky. "To answer your question Ash, some of the things we've been seeing – they're of Rocket scientists being, uh…dismembered in several ways." He shook his head. "It makes me think they've created something not even _you_ can control."

Ash wasn't too pleased with this last, rather pointed remark, but he didn't care to show it. "How do you know if those scientists created anything though?"

Jessie sighed. "We're not going into the details. I just don't want to remember. But we've seen enough to know."

"It's all from the monster's perspective." James added.

"Oh." Ash replied, blandly. He glanced at Charizard, grateful for his friend's find. He couldn't believe his luck, or that Jesse and James turned out to be useful for once. But the question of Brock still bothered him. Should he follow this lead or consult first? Under normal circumstances, he would consult first, but even finding Brock could be a problem. If he was out there.

Ash shuddered under another breeze, looking from James – then down to Jessie. With his mind made and resolve in his voice, Ash commanded:

"You both will take me to your headquarters."

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**For those of you who have been following this:**

**Sorry for the late update.**

**Too much rock climbing, too little writing.**

**(Although, in my opinion, former is impossible.)**


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